Hotbox Roasters: Premium Coffee Without Pretension

Today Oskar Blues Brewery will launch its latest CAN-do company with Hotbox Roasters, a craft coffee roaster following in the beer company’s trailblazing path of canning its product. Hotbox Roasters specializes in roasting the highest quality, fair-trade, single-sourced coffee beans and making them available to coffee fiends in Colorado as well as nationwide via a tiered subscription service.

The company currently produces three different roasts from Kenya, Bolivia, and Indonesia, and will be adding premium beans from other regions over time. Hotbox Roasters also plans to work closely with brewers around the country to provide custom-roasted coffee beans to be used in craft brews as the popularity of coffee-infused beer explodes.

“Canning the coffee seals in the flavor better, not only when we produce it, but also when you reseal it at home,” explains Chief Coffee Dude and Head Roaster Derek Palmer. “You should be fair to the planet – so it’s recyclable. And it’s easier to seal a can on a camping or bike trip than a bag.”

Hotbox Roasters’ coffees are now available in several Colorado retailers including

Lucky’s Market, Ace Hardware, The Tasty Weasel and Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont; Alfalfa’s in Boulder and Louisville, Atlas Valley Purveyors in Lafayette; Perrin Brewery in Grand Rapids, Mich. and Oskar Blues Brewery in Brevard, N.C. Nationwide, fans of Oskar Blues’ signature, bold brews who want to start their day with a similar kick in the pants can order the three Hotbox Roasters coffees online or choose from weekly, biweekly or monthly subscription services.

Our current varieties include:

Bolivia Newton John

Frank Sumatra

Kenya Dig It

All three varieties are available for purchase online. Hotbox Roasters coffee is sealed in 32 oz. reusable and recyclable cans and can be shipped anywhere. Suggested SRP begins at $16.43 and subscriptions range from $13.95/week to $15.69/month.

Dale Katechis, Oskar Blues founder, has been roasting and canning beans for the last couple of years so that he and his employees could enjoy great tasting coffee at work. Katechis saw the opportunity to enter another strong growth market and ultimately blend his two passions with a specialty coffee company. But as he did with craft beer, he wanted to make craft coffee unpretentious and approachable for all coffee lovers. Partnering with friend, colleague and former chef from Crested Butte, Colo., John Ralston, the two are committed to roasting some of the world’s finest beans right where Oskar Blues got its start.

“Hotbox Roasters is something that’s been “brewing” at Oskar Blues for some time and is now ready to turn the fast-growing craft coffee scene on its head a bit, thanks to Dale’s experimentation and growing interest in coffee roasting,” continued Derek Palmer. “Roasted or toasted, Oskar Blues now has you covered. We take sourcing, roasting and the benefits of canning extremely seriously, but we’re never going to stop having fun and playing hard. Oskar Blues loyalists and coffee addicts overall deserve a good frickin’ cup of coffee that’s not pretentious.”

Hotbox Roasters launches at the same time specialty coffee consumption is quickly rising. According to a recent report in the Specialty Coffee Chronicle, 51 percent of people ages 18-24 and 62 percent of ages 25-39 drink specialty coffee daily, up from 25 percent and 42 percent respectively in 2000.

All of Hotbox Roasters coffees are currently roasted on site at The Tasty Weasel in Longmont.